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This chapter canvasses recent global events including white nationalist rallies in the United States, the protectionist vote for Brexit, and the mainstreaming of racist far-right political groups across Europe. It then turns to the landscape of leadership and organisations and discusses how the backlash that we have observed against diversity is institutionalised in business practice. The chapter lays the groundwork to interrogate the violences of leadership theorising and practice in more depth as well as provide ways forward through anti-racist feminist resistance.

This chapter examines how the historiographic framework advanced by Racial Formation in the United States occludes anti-racist movements that were initiated by women of color and queers of color. It reperiodizes anti-racist politics according to the emergence of those movements constituted by people of color who were marginalized by sexuality and gender in order to highlight the specificities of civil rights and national liberation movements. It also considers how race and anti-racist politics were rearticulated in the very moments that Michael Omi and Howard Winant characterize as marked by anti-racist fragmentation. It argues that Omi and Winant's attention to the emergence of the New Right in the 1980s obscures the proliferation of feminist and queer organizing that took place during this period that made strident anti-racist claims.

This chapter looks at the strategies for implementing anti-racist practice. In the 1980s the anti-racist social work movement argued that effective anti-racist practice would also require the significant recruitment of black and Asian workers who could challenge practice on the frontline and change the culture of social work organisations. This chapter revisits some of the early 1980s debates and traces the history of the anti-racist social work movement and the role of early leaders of that movement. But rather than an overt focus on policy regimes and bureaucracies, which many in the 1980s became concerned to focus on, it argues we need to look at the practices and the networks of anti-racist practitioners ‘the catalysers’ who can bring about significant organisational changes to services.

Robin Anne Reid, in “Bending Culture: Racebending.com’s Protests Against Media Whitewashing,” ruminates on the extent to which the gap between the categories of cultural, or fan activism, and political activism may be changing, especially with regard to younger people participating in online activist sites. Reid concentrates her inquiry on one internet community, Racebending.com, which originated in a protest against the casting of white actors in M. Night Shyamalan live-action adaptation The Last Airbender (2010). She argues that the group’s online activities since the release of the film shows the overlap between fan and political activism, thereby demonstrating connections between critical race and intersectional studies.

This chapter discusses some aspects of good practice in a mixed comprehensive school in a rural village. It argues that the rural setting has an effect on anti-racist strategies, issues of segregation, and integration and curriculum content for Gypsy Traveller pupils. The chapter also emphasises the need for policy makers to consider the racism that is faced by a lot of Gypsy Traveller pupils. The development of innovative practice that meets the needs of pupils with nomadic lifestyles which present significant challenges to educators and local education authorities is also considered.

Situated adjacent to present-day student protests calling for more diversity with regard to program, department, and faculty hiring, Sharma recounts the contested formation of Asian American studies at her home institution, Northwestern Univversity.

This chapter discusses the Silver Valley Redneck Revolt that traveled to Charlottesville to participate in the August 12 rally. It explains that the Redneck Revolt is a national movement that was founded in 2016 as an anti-racist and anti-fascist community defense formation. It also discloses that the Redneck Revolt is a part of the “armed left” that emphasizes being armed in defense of leftist groups that seek to counter supremacist groups like the alt-right or the Ku Klux Klan. The chapter analyzes the Redneck Revolt's use of the term “redneck,” which was a point of pride in a deliberate effort to counter the perceived views of the elites. It mentions Dwayne E. Dixon, a member of Redneck Revolt who defied traditional stereotypes.

This chapter focuses on the struggles over the meaning of the post-Katrina New Orleans crisis. It also interrogates how the crisis was seen as an opportunity to confront the racist and revanchist common sense underpinning the neoliberal state and complete the unfinished business of the long civil rights movement. While dominant representations criminalized Black and poor hurricane victims, the interventions of anti-racist activists and artists made possible a shift away from dominant perspectives and toward the poor and the working class as the “source of historical definition.” Ultimately, the Katrina crisis led to a public debate about race, class, and gender inequality on a scale not witnessed since the Los Angeles 1992 uprising.

This chapter looks back at the development of anti-racist social work and traces the intellectual journey that it has been through over the last 20 years. PCF domain 8 requires social workers to be aware of the changing contexts within which social work takes place and social work and social care organizations operate and function. The chapter looks at the recent history of anti-racist social work and ‘sets the scene’ for many of the debates that follow and argues that need to re-think understandings’ of anti-racism need too the rethought in the context of shifting politics and race, difference and diversity.

Around 10 and 15 million Roma live in Europe, where cultural diversity is among the European Union’s officially declared values. However, the Roma are not recognised as representatives of this idea, but have become the European “Other”, perceived as a threat to the dominant society both with their nomadism and their settlement. Roma “otherness” was, and still is, seen in explicit forms of racism in the past (geographical persecution, assimilation strategies, genocide, sterilization) and more implicit forms in the present (nimbisms, ignorance, special school placement). The article looks at these aspects of Roma oppression but also points to examples of good practice from the perspective of both a ‘community social work model’ and a ‘cultural advocacy’ perspective and suggests these are the most successful social work perspectives working with marginalised Gypsy communities.

For well over a decade there has been a marked increase in hostility towards Muslim communities in Britain, and Islamophobia has emerged as a particular form of modern anti-Muslim racism. This chapter draws on research that was carried out with Muslim women in the North of England to assess questions of Islam, gender and identity in modern Britain. It examines the impact of rising levels of Islamophobia on the lives of Muslim women, and their understanding of and responses to, rising levels of racism. There is a focus on issues of culture and identity, and the reasons why women choose to wear the hijab. The chapter also explores the ways in which social workers can, with insight and understanding, practise in a non-discriminatory and non-oppressive manner when intervening in the lives of Muslim women and their families.

This chapter places Frederick Douglass in the pantheon of America’s Founding Fathers because the orator, statesman, and former slave exercised his natural right to free speech without waiting for the courts or legislator to grant this right to him. Douglass argues that disputing the humanity of an interlocutor does not qualify as speech as intended by the First Amendment. The chapter shifts the focus from free speech as American democracy’s bedrock principle to the equally critical and inalienable principle of equality. The discussion includes the concept that free speech must be rooted in equality, poses the question of whether free speech depends on one’s legal status, and reaffirms that inherent humanity is not up for debate.

This chapter explores the use of comics as pedagogical tools in interdisciplinary courses such as Gender Studies and Ethnic Studies. Specifically, the chapter investigates the ways in which the superhero comic Ms. Marvel is an important example of feminist and anti-racist pedagogy for these courses. By framing the textual analysis of the comic through gender and critical race theorists such as Sara Ahmed and Shireen Roshanravan, the chapter demonstrates the ways in which Kamala Khan, the protagonist, grapples with villains and difficulties that reflect the societal issues of sexism, racism, and Islamophobia. Kamala Khan’s battle against injustice resonates with many readers’ everyday experiences, and disrupts both genre-based and hegemonic structures of oppression and heroism. By teaching Ms. Marvel through the lens of gender studies and critical ethnic studies, this text enables students to gain a new perspective on race, justice, and “terror,” which allows them to be more just, empathetic learners.